Page 9

Lessons Hard Lived

RILEY

I couldn’t save her.

That was my biggest fear. One I’d prayed never came to fruition. Yet, as I watched her in her fitful sleep, I knew that I could not hold on forever.

She was sick. We had no food, no weapons. Only weapons of our minds. The freakish shit reality had erupted around us that day as I’d made my way back to the market bench. I’d been prepared to explain to my sister why the courts had shot down custody for the third and final time.

London had no home to go to. No place for us to gather what we would need to run for what seemed like the rest of our lives. I had failed her in more ways than one. My own home life had been unstable. After being kicked out of the group home when I aged out of the system, I’d spent every dime I’d earned on legal fees trying to get my sister out. It’d screwed me over in the end. What I was able to afford with the spare change of my checks wasn’t survivable according to California law.

None of that mattered anymore. Except it did. I still couldn’t provide for her, protect her. She was weak now. Dying. We were starving and had been for a while now. Supply out on the road had run dry. Over a year into the end of the world and anything easily accessible had been thoroughly raided in the area. So I’d said screw it. The Bay hadn’t had much left for us, anyway. Not for a long time. Heading south seemed to be a good idea in the moment, but I’d severely underestimated the vast geography California possessed. We weren’t equipped to make the journey—it was a lesson I was finding hard lived.

Figuring out how to control my magic should have remained my focus. Earth had powered me, but the ability to make it bend to my will remained impossible. I’d not had success in using it for any meaningful purpose. Only if we came across an edible plant could I make it grow. Once I depleted the source of its nutrients, that was it. Forget duplicating it or growing it from the conjures of my imagination.

It’d been my idea to stay near the road for the night. The woods on the other side of us were far too dense to find our way back out with the amount of energy we had left. Tomorrow, I would leave her tucked away and scour a few miles for something edible. Anything that could fill our stomachs. At least this place had makeshift weapons, though it bore no food. The fireplace poker would do well enough, and I could break the legs from the chair and carve out some spears once we came across another knife.

London had beat herself up for leaving behind the pack that contained our weapons, but she was hardly to blame. It was on me just as well for not noticing. My primary focus had been getting us off the road with the herd. Going back for it wasn’t worth the risk.

I placed my palm on the hardwood floor. The fire ants surrounding a sticky splotch raced toward my fingertips. The tickle of them against my skin was soothing. This gift of mine confused me. Prior to the fall of civilization, I’d never minded bugs per se. There tended to be a lot of them in the homes we’d stayed in throughout our life, but the comfort they brought me now made no sense. In some moments, it felt as though they whispered to me.

Impossible.

Except it wasn’t. In fact, it was expected. That’s how my luck went.

Not much was known about our father outside of vague memories and what the files our social worker kept was able to relay to us overtime. One thing was consistent. Voices. He always heard voices. Eventually, the voices became too much. 911 was the first number my mother had taught me at the ripe age of eight. I’d put it to use that same year. Still, I was too late. I could not protect her. I could not protect him. I protected my sister, but everyone else, I’d failed.

Never again.

The world was so quiet now that the dead and the walking ruled it. It’d made the skill I’d learned early on in life easier to tune. The gravel at the edge of the driveway clanked under the pressure of heavy footsteps. Several footsteps. Fast ones. A man was through the door before I made it to my feet. He was fast, strong, one of the freakishly large ones. Like a feral cat, he pounced and sent us tumbling to the floor. Defending myself was instinctual, but in this weakened state I found myself useless. Slow. I was too damn slow for it to be an even match.

As the first blow connected with my temple, a sharp explosion of pain seared through my skull. The world spun in my momentarily disoriented state. Warm blood trickled down the side of my face, the cool ground beneath me screwing with my senses. Overstimulated was an understatement. Loud, nonrhythmic banging reverberated through the room. Every sound—every sense—was magnified. The frantic tempo of desperation and impending danger sped up the pounding of my heart. I needed to slow things down, regain control.

My hands dragged against the rough texture of the floor, betraying me as I struggled to regain my footing. The room seemed to tilt. A dizzying sensation sent me to my ass once more. Hands wrapped around my ankle and dragged me across the floor toward the door. The scent of decay hung heavy in the air, a sickly sweet reminder of what lay on the other side of the door. A hiss sang through the man’s teeth. My fire ants sought to defend me as they crawled up his arm and clamped down on his skin.

Despite the chaos raging around me, I remained focused on London. Her eyes were wide with terror as she watched the struggle unfold. A surge of determination swept through me. I would not die here today. Not without making sure my sister was safe first.

Fighting against the pain and confusion, I flipped myself over and freed myself from his grasp. He fell on top of me, granting me the first clear look at him. His brown eyes were dark as coal. As cold as coal too. The hardness there was familiar to me. I knew that look. A survivor’s stare.

“Wait,” I mumbled, using most of my remaining strength to shove him off me.

The man stumbled back, his hand instinctively reaching for the gun holstered at his side. My heart sank to my ass. I lunged forward, grappling with him in a frantic struggle for control.

“Kill him, Riley,” my sister croaked as she pushed herself against the fireplace behind her. She rolled to her knees, attempting to get up and failing.

His fingers closed around the grip of his pistol. The cold metal bit into my skin as I fought him off. Adrenaline powered me, dulling the agony of my injuries. But the man was strong. His grip unyielding.

“Here.” A fireplace poker clanged against the ground. “Finish him.”

No. It couldn’t be that simple. If all we did was kill each other, then the dead would win. We needed to work together, play to each other’s strengths. A group with a survivor’s mentality would be a force to be reckoned with. It wasn’t that long ago when my sister recognized that as the truth.

With a desperate cry, I threw myself forward and drove my shoulder into his chest. My fingers laced around the poker. I slammed it into his hand, sending the gun flying across the room. The impact staggered him.

“We don’t have to fight. We can help each other,” I tried again between ragged breaths.

London coughed, leaning forward as she dug through her bag, likely for her knife. “It’s us or them, Ril.”

“ This is how we survive, London. This is how I make sure you live. We need help. We can help each other.”

“Help?” the man choked out a laugh. “In this world?”

I seized the opportunity. Tackling him to the ground, I placed him in a choke hold. I wasn’t sure where the strength found me, but I was glad it did.

For a heartbeat, we stayed locked in the deadly embrace. Breathless and bruised, I loosened my hold as his struggle stopped. “Yeah, in this world. We’re safer as three than we are as two or alone.”

He tapped my arm in yield and I released him. “Have you seen the groups out here? Nothing but trouble. More people, more noise, more zombies.”

“I said three, not twenty.”

“I just attacked you to leave you as live bait to those zombie shits clawing through the door,” he muttered. The beanie he’d worn fell off in our tumble, revealing his stark white hair.

“Unfortunately, I can’t say being left out as bait hasn’t been a common theme in my life.”

Consideration teased at his pale features. Everything about the guy seemed cold, but I didn’t care. “You have no clue the kind of person I am,” he said.

“We’d be a team. The only thing I need to know is that we have the same goal; staying alive. We”—I nodded toward London, who only glared back at me—“are no strangers to survivor pacts. Been at it for a long time.”

This had been a point of contention for us since the beginning. It’d pretty much been the two of us outside of one instance. It had only been a few weeks and despite the outcome, it’d been worth it. London had become attached to April. I might have even said she’d come to see her as more than a friend or ally, though she’d claimed there was no time for that.

Part of the time, London appeared more equipped for this life than I was. I was supposed to be the one protecting her yet more times than not, she’d been the one to make all the decisions. I just wanted to keep her happy. I couldn’t do that before, but I could do it now even with the world going to shit. Until recently. When her health had declined. Now all I cared about was keeping her safe. Alive . April’s presence had increased our security, allowing us to cover more ground in search of food and weapons.

“You know my vote is to kill you,” London grumbled, and I realized his attention had fallen to her. “Lucky I can’t do it myself.”

There was no time for contemplation. The door burst open, thudding against the wall like thunder clapping through a silent night. The dead flood into the room, the sickening clicks and groans echoing. A macabre symphony of death. Panic took over. My once logical line of thinking abandoned me for the first time since I was eight. London whimpered, desperate to push herself away from the advancing herd. Her efforts were futile.

I scanned the room for the gun. They were fast. Too fast to have given us a fighting chance of all walking out alive. I swung the poker, driving the bar through their decaying skulls. The man fought at my back, the slicing of metal on skin giving me the impression he also carried a knife. London’s shrill cry for help overtook the moans of death that danced through the air.

Through the bodies of the dead, I’d lost sight of her.

The bar caught on bone, stuck within the skull of the lost soul in front of me. I let go. Dropping to the ground, I searched for something else to use. Anything.

The man dropped with me. “Do you have a plan?” he asked.

He passed me a knife as we kicked back the dead that had fallen atop of us in their reach for our bodies to feast on. A glimmer of metal caught my eye near the couch.

“No plan except to survive.” Without hesitation, I scrambled for it, grabbing hold as the man fought off the advancing dead.

I held steady as I aimed and fired. The splintering sound of gunfire sang around the room as I fought to clear a path to the cries of my sister. London’s screams grew faint and hope soared through me. She only had to kill the first few and drop the body of the dead atop her to cover her scent.

The magazine emptied, and I cursed under my breath.

“Catch,” the man offered, throwing an extra mag toward me.

My reflexes failed me as it tumbled to the floor. I reached down, emptying the first one, then shoved the re-up in. Four shots rang out and then the room went silent. With a sickening finality, the dead that had surrounded her tumbled to the ground. Blood spurted. Crimson painting the room as the life of my sister faded away before my eyes. The bite mark on her leg went down to the bone, and blood pooled out in an impossibly large puddle.

London’s jaw was slack, a terrifying rattle releasing from her chest as the bursts of blood slowed to a dribble from the side of her neck. The last pumps of her heart were not strong enough to continue painting the walls the color my little sister bled.

In a cry of anguish, I fell to my knees, crawling to her as I fired round after round into the skulls of the dead, leaving all but one in the chamber. It didn’t matter. No amount of gunfire could bring her back. I took a deep, controlled breath. I was truly alone in this unforgiving world. As I stood amid the carnage of London’s corpse, it dawned on me that nothing would ever be the same again.

Eyes brimmed with tears, I turned to look at the man I’d extended a hand to moments before. This is not his fault , I attempted to reason with myself. It was mine. It was my sister. I was the one to protect her.

Except without him, none of this would have ever happened.

He raised his hands. His words of apology fell on deaf ears as I met his steely gaze. The apology was to keep his life, it would not bring her back. Nothing would. The only way my sister could live on is through me. Through living in her honor.

Without a word, I raised the gun, the weight of it now heavy in my trembling hand. There was no mercy to be found in this broken, screwed up world. I silenced his apologies forever. Nothing. I felt nothing as I watched his body crumple to the ground.

Another deep breath in. And out. I closed my eyes, willing myself to focus. I couldn’t change the past, but I could keep moving forward. For London. I would keep living for London. She would want that. My sister, who was so full of life, determined to survive no matter the cost. She was right; there was something to be said about sticking to the shadows, to being on our own.

I walked over to London’s lifeless body. Kneeling beside her, I gently brushed a dark brown curl from her face, the touch of it breaking off a piece of my heart. I pulled the blanket she’d been sleeping with over her body and tucked it in at her sides. An eternal slumber. The last time I’d ever tuck her in.

Whispering a solemn goodbye, I turned away from the only family I’d ever known and left my world behind. London had been my everything for the last sixteen years. I’d sworn to keep her safe.

I had failed.